The Inactivity in Active: A Worrisome Sign of the Times?

There is a robust discussion ongoing among academics and investors around the need for cost management in investing, providing appropriate solutions for retirement finance and the general underperformance of active managers, which has led to the bulk of “smart capital” flowing to passive strategies. At the same time a subset of believers in the industry argue that the absence of active investing can lead to the suboptimal allocation of capital, the lack of liquidity in capital markets, and more disquietingly, a reliance on passive investing can lead to the magnification of correlation shocks in periods of market stress. To discuss this and related topics, such as Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) investing in Asia, “Fintech” disruptions to the investment industry’s business model, and the manner in which institutions, investors and academics should respond, the ABFER will bring together a panel of academic and investment experts to shed light on the issues and challenges - and address pertinent questions in the industry today.

Speaker

Professor Joseph Cherian (Moderator)

Practice Professor of Finance andDirector of the Centre for Asset Management
Research and Investments (CAMRI),
National University of Singapore

Joseph Cherian is Practice Professor of Finance and Director of the
Centre for Asset Management Research & Investments (CAMRI) at NUS
Business School, where he also serves on the School's Executive Education
Board.

Prior to that, Joe was Managing Director,
Global Head, and CIO of the Quantitative Strategies Group within Credit
Suisse Alternative Investments in New York, where he had direct
responsibility for over US$67 billion in client assets managed to a
quantitative discipline. While at Credit Suisse, Joe also served on the
Global Executive Committee and various senior management, investments, and
risk committees of the Asset Management division. Joe joined Credit Suisse
in 2004 from Banc of America Capital Management, also in New York, where he
was Managing Director and Senior Portfolio Manager of their asset allocation
funds.

Previously, he was an Associate Professor of Finance at Boston University.
He has authored numerous articles for financial journals, and serves on the
Scientific Advisory Board of Nipun Capital, a boutique hedge fund based in
San Francisco. Joe has or had appointments at the Ministry of Manpower's CPF
Advisory Panel, the Singapore International Mediation Centre's Panel of
Technical Experts, the National Research Foundation's Early Stage Venture
Fund Evaluation Panel, the SNEC/SERI Medical Director’s Advisory Council in
Singapore, the Melbourne Mercer Global Pension Index (MMGPI) Steering
Committee in Australia, and the Journal of Alternative Investments'
Editorial Board in the US. He formerly served as a review board member of
the Research Foundation of the CFA Institute, and on the Scientific Advisory
Boards of net Decide Corp., a pioneering RoboAdvisory firm, Orissa Group, a
pioneer in the development and dissemination of liquidity-based data and
analytical products across multiple asset classes, and SKG Inc., all based
in the US. Joe holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from MIT, and M.S. and
Ph.D. degrees in Finance from Cornell University.

Ms Arisa Kishigami

Head of ESG, Asia Pacific, FTSE Russell

Arisa Kishigami is responsible for FTSE Russell’s Environmental,
Social and Governance services across the Asia Pacific region. Arisa works
closely with clients to provide a comprehensive range of products and data
to support them in reaching their investment decisions.

She has been working as an expert in ESG and
Sustainable Investment since 2007, including managing corporate engagement
programmes, ESG indices and ratings, and advisory research on stewardship
implementation for pension funds. Arisa relocated to Tokyo in 2015 to take
up her position as Head of ESG, prior to this she was based in London, a key
hub for ESG investments.

Arisa has contributed to the wider debate on ESG and long term investment
through various international committees including the UNPRI Assessment
Technical Committee, and is a bridging spokesperson between Japan and
globally as a member of the Management Committee member of J-SIF (Japan
Sustainable Investment Forum).

Arisa holds an MSc in African Studies at the University of Oxford, UK, and a
bachelor’s degree in Policy Management from Keio University, Japan.

Professor Charles Lee

Moghadam Family Professor of Management and Professor of Accounting, Stanford
University
Co-Founder, Nipun Capital and Senior Fellow, Asian Bureau of Finance and
Economic Research (ABFER)

Charles M. C. Lee is the Moghadam Family Professor of Management and
Professor of Accounting at the Graduate School of Business (GSB), Stanford
University. He is also Co-Founder of Nipun
Capital, a San Francisco based asset management firm focused on Asian
equities. Professor Lee studies the effect of human cognitive constraints on
market participants and factors that impact market pricing efficiency. He
has published extensively on topics that span behavioral finance, financial
analysis, market microstructure, equity valuation, quantitative investing,
and security market regulation. From 2004 to July 2008, he was Managing
Director at Barclays Global Investors (BGI; now Blackrock), where he served
as Global Head of Equity Research and Co-Head of North America Active
Equities.

Professor Lee has received numerous honors and awards for his research and
teaching. He has also served as either Editor or Associate Editor of a
number of academic journals, including: the Journal of
Finance, The Accounting Review, the Journal
of Accounting Research, the Journal of Accounting and
Economics, the Review of Accounting Studies,
Management Science (Finance), and the Financial
Analysts Journal.

Professor Lee received his BMath from the University of Waterloo (1981), and
his MBA (1989) and PhD (1990) from Cornell University. He has been a faculty
member at the Michigan Business School (1990-95) and the Johnson Graduate
School of Management, Cornell University (1996-2004). From 1995-96 he was
Visiting Economist at the New York Stock Exchange. At Cornell he held the
Henrietta Johnson Louis Professorship in Management and was Director of the
Parker Center for Investment Research. He also served as Co-chair of the
Accounting Department at Guanghua School of Management, Peking University
(2003-2015).

Prior to entering academic life, he spent five years in public accounting,
the last three in the National Research Department of KPMG, Toronto, Canada.
He holds a Certificate in Biblical Studies from Ontario Theological
Seminary, and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Mr Percy Wong

Head, Systematic Investment Group, GIC Singapore

Percy Wong is currently a Senior Vice President and Head of the
Systematic Investment Group (SIG). SIG is a quantitative investment group
that manages long-only and absolute return portfolios in equities and macro
markets. Prior to SIG, Percy was a cross-asset strategist in the Economics
and Investment Strategy department, advising senior management on asset
allocation at the total portfolio level.

Percy joined GIC from Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML), where he headed
up a Cross-Asset Macro research team advising hedge fund, institutional, and
SWF clients. Prior to BAML, Percy spent five years at Goldman Sachs (Asia),
in the Principal Strategies Group (GSPS) as an investor in Asian equities
and macro investments, as well as in Global Investment Research (GIR), as an
Asia Pacific ex Japan Equity Strategist for an Institutional Investor ranked
research team. Prior to GS, Percy spent five years as a consultant at Stern
Stewart & Co., advising clients in the US, Latin America, and Asia on
corporate strategy, valuation, and implementation of the EVA®
value-based framework.

Percy holds an MBA from the University of Chicago and an HBA from the Ivey
Business School at Western University, Canada. Percy is also a CFA charter
holder.

Mr Hugh Young

Managing Director, Aberdeen Asset Management Asia Limited

Hugh Young is a Director of Aberdeen Asset Management PLC. He is Head
of Investments for the Group and Managing Director of Aberdeen Asset
Management Asia Limited. He founded Singapore-based Aberdeen Asia in 1992 and
has been managing the Group’s Asian equities since 1985. Hugh is a director
of a number of Group subsidiary companies and Aberdeen-managed investment
trusts and funds.